Review: My Oni Girl

On Friday May 17th, the Studio Colorido original project My Oni Girl had its world premiere at Anime Central, ahead of its wider release on Netflix on May 24th. Director/writer Tomotaka Shibayama (A Whisker Away) and producer Karen Imagawa were present for the screening and to take audience questions afterwards.

In the roughly two hour long movie, first-year high school student Hiiragi is struggling to fit in at his new school when he encounters Tsumugi, a girl on a journey whom only he can see is actually an oni. (Their horns aren’t visible to most normal folk.) She has left her people’s Hidden Village on a quest to find her mother, who left her when she was little. Hiiragi winds up accompanying Tsumugi on her quest, partly because he’s drawn to her free spirit and partly as a way to escape a conflict with his father, who wants him to be privately tutored rather than attend a cram school, a move that Hiiragi feels would only isolate himself further. As the two goes on a number of misadventures – first on a trek to a shrine Tsumugi believes her mother went to, and later to the Hidden Village – they must contend with masked spirits who seem to be pursuing them, Hiiragi’s own supernatural transformation, and contrasting personalities that both draw the two together and push them away from each other.

Director Shibayama’s first job in the industry was working for Studio Ghibli (he did digital work for Spirited Away), and that Ghibli influence shows clearly throughout every facet of this project. The journey that Hiiragi and Tsumugi go on, the kinds of people that they meet, the supernatural flair, the production approach (Shibayama was storyboarding the movie as he wrote it, an approach Miyazaki has been known to use), the designs of the Snow Gods – all of it has a decided Ghibli feel. The only real major deviation is that, unlike in most Ghibli films featuring youths, the protagonists are not entirely left to their own devices. The fathers of both actively come after them and are integrally involved in some parts of the story (although Tsumugi’s father is much more present than Hiiragi’s).

To call this just a Ghibli knock-off would be unfair, though. Shibayama has a clear message he is pushing throughout the movie: that Japanese youths are too caught up in not showing their true hearts, and that can lead to serious complications. That takes literal form in the movie, as people (like Hiiragi) who lie too much about their own heart can start to generate “mini-oni” and will turn into oni themselves if that goes on for too long. In a more figurative sense, it is also the major impetus driving Hiiragi forward and occasionally even becomes a point of conflict; one of the movie’s best scenes is a tiff the two have with a swing used as a prop, and Hiiragi’s unwillingness to be forthright about his feelings is at the heart of it.

Characterization is another strength of the movie. Whereas Hiiragi tends to repress his feelings, Tsumugi is very forthright about hers, and that both creates a fine contrast and provides a reasonable foundation for why Hiiragi chooses on the spur of the moment to help Tsumugi; he’s drawn to the traits he wishes he could muster himself. Of course, Hiiragi’s personality isn’t without its own problems, as her free spirit leads her to try to tackle problems on her own that she probably shouldn’t, and so Tsumugi becomes both a co-conspirator and something of a safety net. Even when fighting, the two have a good chemistry going.

The storytelling does have its weak points, however. That Shibayama did not have the story fully plotted out in advance shows in its late stages as the action moves to the Hidden Village. In particular, the reason why Tsumugi’s mother is not around is poorly explained and developed, and why she had to do what she did is only barely implied. Why Tsumugi’s father did not ever tell her the truth of the matter is also unclear; yes, it may represent the village’s dark underbelly, but all of the adults were clearly aware of it and children would need to know about it eventually. The disrupts the flow of the dramatic climax a bit and leaves audiences scratching their heads too much when they should be absorbed in the emotions of the climax. The very interesting physical structure of the village also gets entirely too little attention and exploration; imagine what Spirited Away would have been like if only a half-hour of the movie took place in the Bath House of the Gods. The pacing also becomes more erratic as the urgency of events ramps up in the last third after playing out at a more evenly leisurely pace before that.

The movie’s technical merits are more consistent. Its strengths lie in its artistic design, especially for the snowbound, multi-tiered Hidden Village and the Snow Gods. On the downside, the supporting music is consistently pedestrian, though not to the point of being a negative. The animation effort is solid for a movie-level production but not quite on an elite level.

On the whole, My Oni Girl does not succeed at everything it tries to do, but it does find a satisfying core in interesting characters and guides them capably with both internal and external motivations. It is definitely worth checking out.

Overall Rating: B+